Chapter 10: Wind and Shadows among the Leaves

He stuck to his plan of backtracking, returning to the room that held all the blocks, needing to pause because, apparently, wallmasters were one of the rare enemies that would return when he left an area alone long enough. That seemed to fit with Navi's earlier warning about their ability to distort reality. He destroyed the second wallmaster, for at least forty rupees in blue rupees, thinking that he at least had plenty of money for target practise, when he at last left here.

He drew the bow on the other side of the twisted corridor, aiming at the eye-switch above the door leading to it. Navi fluttered near the eye, but, when he asked, decided not to guide his arrows, as he tried to reach the switch on his own. It still only took him one shot.

The effects of closing the eye-switch were not readily apparent. It was only when, at length, he ceased seeking after some change in the room he stood in, and decided to walk back to his warp point, that he discovered what they did. Upon opening the door to the corridor, he understood the eye-switch's function. The formerly twisted corridor was now straight.

He walked down the hall, to what initially seemed a never-before seen room. It was marked as such on the map, but in fact, it was the same room as before, complete with another wallmaster. Now, the blue treasure chest was on the wall, and not the ceiling, and there was a hole in the ground, leading to parts unknown. Well, he might as well discover whither it led. The ladder still led to the same door as before, as he knew when he hazarded a peek beyond said door, and saw Joelle's room.

He leapt into the hole in the floor, instead, landing in a familiar ledge around the garden wall. A deku baba twice his height lunged at him even as he landed. A colonnade led to a ledge, by which he could access a balcony if he used the hookshot to latch onto the big treasure chest that stood there. Vines grew down near the balcony, with skulltulas making scratching noises from their perches there. Link walked back through the roof supported by the colonnade, returning to where he had landed.

There was a door directly before him, and one to the right. He opened the door to the right, first, because it had a handle, and that seemed to have some sort of significance in this dungeon (what significance it held, however, remained a mystery to him, for now). He found that this door led to the unreachable ledge of the room with the blocks. He approached the other door, which held no handle, and ordered it to open.

He furrowed his brow, turning to Navi.

"Watch out, Link!" Navi said, sounding rather hasty and panicky. "This is a floormaster! It'll drain your life energy if it gets you in its clutches! When you deal enough damage to it, it splits into three. Destroy all of those parts before they can grow into full-grown floormasters! It can't be hurt when it turns green at you and lunges—yes, thus!"

They looked identical to wallmasters, but they behaved in the same way as redead. Well, at least they didn't make noises as did the redead. But, they probably weren't affected by the Sun's Song, either. He lashed out at them, several times, and waited until they broke into several separate smaller individuals. Then, he swiped his right hand to the right, then turned, swinging his arms to the left, and murmuring a prayer to Din, he gathered magical energy. A bubble of fire expanded outwards, setting the floormasters alight as it hit them.

"Well, that's one way of doing that, I suppose. But, you'd better conserve your magic—hope that the Forest Temple provides some means of recovering it." Navi fluttered over to land on his shoulder, breathing heavy.

"Navi…" he said. "Are you alright?"

"Perhaps, I've worked a bit too hard," she admitted, with some reluctance. "Just…let me rest for a few minutes. Can you look after yourself for that long?"

"Don't worry about me, Navi," he said, smiling shyly at her. "I'll be alright. I'll just see what lies in that treasure chest on the balcony. That won't eat any magic…say, Navi, me using magic doesn't drain your energy, does it?" he asked, worried, now, that he'd put Navi in such a state with his use of Din's Fire. He was sure that it wouldn't hurt Navi, remembering what Navi had said about faeries being impervious to great heat. But, he hadn't realised that his magic might draw from hers.

"I don't think so. It's just…all the aiming you've been doing. I've been flying around quite a lot, too. That's all. I just need a bit of rest."

She climbed under his laces, and, perhaps, fell asleep.

Link frowned, but went to the end of the colonnade, aiming for the big treasure chest. There was nothing else that could be in here except for the compass. Sure enough, he finally found the compass. If he'd been able to get up here earlier, it would have been the second big treasure chest he'd found. Maybe the dungeon was not as atypical as it had first appeared. He would reserve judgement.

With no easy way to return to the ledge, he knew that he'd have to use Farore's Wind. But, he needed to recover his magic, first. He pulled the hookshot back out, aiming at the skulltula on the vine-covered wall, and then climbed down via vines, dropping when he was low enough for the fall not to injure him. He returned back to the main chamber, remembering seeing some jars before.

He did get a bit sidetracked, however, when he noticed the brightly burning torches in two of the corners of the lift. One was blue, and one was red—when the torches in the rooms with the paintings had lit, these torches must also have reignited. Then, he needed to hunt down the green and purple poe sisters, defeat them, and relight the torches in their rooms. That shouldn't be too hard, right?

He broke open a jar, found a big vial of natural magic medicine, and drank it, regaining slightly less than half the energy he'd lost. A second such vial, in another such jar, brought him back to almost fully replenished magic. Now, he could attempt the spell the Great Faerie at Zora's Fountain had taught him.

The cost in magic was minimal, and soon he stood on the stairs, as he had before, staring up at the locked door in the now empty room. He opened the door, and at last entered the other three-exit corridor. This one, he noticed immediately, was straight. A green bubble, as Navi called them, made circles in the air halfway through. Periodically, the green flames protecting it subsided, leaving it vulnerable. Link took the opportunity to spear it through with a thrust of the Master Sword.

It burst into blue flames, and he continued on. On the other side was another room with protruding pillars sticking out from the walls and the floor, providing access to another room through a door with a handle, and a hole in the floor, currently not exposing anything. He suspected that, somewhere, there was a switch that would cause the hole to lead somewhere, in whatever way these mysterious twisted corridors worked. It was probably located through that door on the right.

"Link, watch out!" cried Navi. "There are wallmasters here!"

Now would be a very bad time to lose all of his progress. He waited for the hand to drop, and rolled out of its reach, turning to leap at the monster that resembled a human hand. After a few more strikes, it burst into blue flames leaving behind a shower of blue rupees. He wasn't sure that he had room to store all of these, anymore.

There were, however, more important things to consider at the moment. For instance, he would need to find a way to twist the corridor with the green bubble in it.

He climbed up the ladder onto a ledge, and opened the (handled and locked) door. Beyond was a room with a frozen eye-switch, a torch in the centre of a pillar rising out of a pool of lava, and a number of other pillars circling around it, each, as he saw as he moved closer, mounted on a disc that rotated around, which did not melt in the lava, although made of stone.

He turned to glance at Navi, but firmed his resolve, leaping onto one of the pillars as it passed by, and pulling out the bow. At least he could access his inventory on his own, now, unlike the last time that Navi had run out of energy.

He aimed the bow at the eye, through its block of ice. A small part of him couldn't help wondering about the coincidence in the same room of a lava pool and a frozen solid switch, but this was a temple. Strange forces were expected to be at work, here.

He drew back the bowstring, after sighting carefully, and shot at the eye. The arrow melted the ice as it approached, clearing a way to the eye itself. He hit on his first try, and he heard a creaking noise coming from behind him, with a loud groan, seemingly of the earth itself. He left that room, returning to the room that didn't yet have another wallmaster waiting for him. He crossed to the other side of the room, and climbed a set of stone steps, formerly on the wall, leading up to the twisted corridor.

He paused, here, once again lifting his hands high above his head, focusing magic into them, and bringing them back to himself, with the requisite prayer to Farore. Then, he dropped down into the hole in the floor, which led to a room covered in black and white squares arranged in a checkerboard, as in the Temple of Time. There were a number of chests visible throughout the room. He saw the shadows that indicated monsters hiding in the ceiling above, and looked up to see a platform with square and rectangular holes cut into it. It looked very heavy, if strangely damaged.

He took a few steps forward, trying to figure out if there was a pattern to where the holes in the ceiling were, when he saw that it was slowly coming closer. Suddenly, it slammed down, right in front of him.

Oh.

He paid attention to the squares it had left uncovered, as he watched the ceiling rise again. This could take a while, especially with foes lurking further on.

The first thing he noticed was that the "safe" zones were cut to fit around the edges of the squares. If he noticed what squares were safe, he didn't have to worry about what part of the square he stepped on.

Secondly, there were holes in the ceiling to accommodate every treasure chest, and every hanging monster. Sometimes, the patch of squares was two wide, or two long, but never encompassed more than two squares. Other than these rules, there was seemingly no rhyme or reason to the arrangement.

Twisted corridors, paintings that served as the defences of souls, and now falling ceilings. He'd probably never understand how the twisted corridors worked (he was certain that, over the course of traversing the corridor, he went from walking on the floor, to walking on what was, technically, the wall. That horizontal and vertical could both be down was a concept he couldn't begin to wrap his mind around. But this checkerboard-patterned trap struck him as pointless cruelty.

He traversed the path with great care, trying not to remember that there were people counting on him, who needed his help, as soon as possible. He needed to focus on the task at hand.

There was never anything terribly important in the small treasure chests—he stopped, each time, in case there was a small key, but only removed a small bundle of arrows, and a magic vial. He lured the skulltulas down from the ceiling, and then backed away, hookshot already out, aiming at them, shooting them with the end hook, and then rolling forwards to land on their squares. Finally, however, he made it to the far side. The door was at the end of the falling ceiling, and thus was not a real breakage of the rule that stated that no more than two squares next to one another could be safe.

He opened the door with haste, walking through to find himself in a room with a giant portrait of the third poe sister on the wall. This one wore green, and carried a green torch. He looked down at Navi, nestled in the laces of his tunic, and decided against asking her for anything just now.

He drew out the bow and arrow, notched an arrow to the string, and sighted towards the head of the poe sister. His aim was true, but the painting deflected his arrow; it ricocheted, heading back to him, but falling short.

Red numbers appeared on the wall, counting down from sixty. A series of nine blocks rose out of the ground. Each was high as his waist, and as heavy as you would expect from a solid block of stone. Each of the six faces, as far as he could see, had a different image on it. Each face also had handholds carved into it.

It took him a matter of seconds to notice first that the blocks contained the same colours as the paintings on the wall, and then that they were the same image as that on the wall, only shuffled around. Then, he understood.

Navi awoke as he was pushing and pulling the blocks into place. She fluttered out of his collar, looking first at the tall painting, and then at the flashing numbers, and then at the puzzle before him. She wisely kept silent, as Link settled the last blocks into place.

They sank down into the floor, and Link could almost hear the shift in the air. The poe sister's barrier was dismantled; now was the time to strike. He took aim with another arrow, hitting the face, when he fired the arrow.

The giant painting erupted in blue flames, and the green poe sister emerged, turned invisible (and invincible), whirling towards him, her location traceable only by the progress of that green torch.

"This is Amy, the youngest of the poe sisters…. After this, only Meg remains. I've heard Meg's the craftiest, and has some skill in sorcery. But. Amy is clearly no pushover. Be careful, Link."

Navi flew over to Amy, as the ghost reappeared. Link still had the bow out, and he swiftly aimed and fired at the ghost. As with the previous two, she threw her hands up, and disappeared, spinning towards him, brandishing the torch, as the others had.

Maybe Amy didn't have any new tricks, after all.

Except, it was twelve arrows later that she finally burst into blue flames. He had begun to wonder if she weren't much stronger than the other two poes he had fought, instead of just cleverer. Now, he wasn't sure. It had taken thirteen hits to defeat her, when the previous two had each needed ten hits. They, however, had also had more paintings. Did that make a difference? Were the paintings somehow tied into their life force?

He bit his lip, considering asking Navi. She fluttered back over to him, as the green flame of the torch moved from Amy's dropped brand to the fancy brazier near where the painting had hung. A treasure chest dropped down, and Link knew what he'd find.

Sure enough, he opened the treasure chest to find a bundle of arrows. He scoured the room for jars, finding some at the diagonal walls of the room. He broke them all open, looking for magic vials. He'd seen no way back to the upper level of the Temple. Perhaps he'd missed it, distracted by the falling ceiling. Perhaps, if not for Farore's Wind, he would have been trapped here. Perhaps, there was a secret exit to this room. He had no way to know for sure without carefully examining both rooms.

He made a perimeter of the room, but found nothing overtly suspicious. If there was a passage to the rooms above, it was in the room with the falling ceiling. On balance, using Farore's Wind to return to the room at the end of the second twisted corridor seemed a much more certain idea.

With Navi up-to-date on the current happenings, he warped back to the room with the wallmasters in it, not staying long enough for one to drop down on him.

He ran through the twisted corridor, and opened the door on the other side.

He blinked. This was not the room he'd expected to see. It was a small room with two storeys, and a flight of stairs leading down. It was, compared to the rooms that had held the paintings, small and straightforward. There was little more than two doors and a staircase connecting two landings.

He ran down the staircase, and opened the door at the other end. He walked into a small, square room with a hole in the middle of the floor, and a door leading to another room, but which was otherwise empty. As he approached the hole in the floor to look at what lay beneath, he heard the low whistling of rushing wind that heralded the approach of a wallmaster. Navi gasped, looking contrite. Her hands flew to her mouth.

Link leapt back from the ledge, as the wallmaster dropped down. He slashed at it repeatedly with the Master Sword, until it burst into blue flames, leaving behind a handful of moderately high-denomination rupees.

He wondered what happened if he sent rupees into his inventory when his wallets were both too full to hold anymore. Did the rupees cease to exist? Were they transported elsewhere? He hadn't bothered to keep track of how many rupees he'd acquired from wallmasters in this dungeon, alone, and his exact funds prior to coming here was a bit hazy, on account of his sudden influx of old memories, combined with the seven-year gap. He wasn't sure if he had enough space in his wallet.

He shrugged, picked them up, and leant over the hole in the floor after ensuring that there were no more wallmasters waiting.

He understood their presence better, when, kneeling next to the hole, he peered down into a familiar room, with a blue treasure chest on the floor below him. He'd never seen such a chest outside this dungeon, but knew it at once.

He plunged down into the room below, and swiveled the clasp, throwing the chest open in a blaze of light.

He reached inside to pull out a huge key, with two green eyes set into a shape resembling a head with pointed ears. "That's the big key," said Navi, leaning over his shoulder to look at it. "It'll let you into the boss's lair."

Link sent it into his inventory, cocked his head. "…I know," he said, bringing his finger to his lip, tapping his cheek as he thought. "He always seemed to find one before he had to fight a boss, with a few exceptions. I hadn't thought they'd look this way."

He gave Navi a small smile, and shrugged. "Still, it's a good sign. There's nothing else important to the dungeon after we've found the dungeon skill, the map, the compass, the big key, and fought the miniboss. We're almost finished here—"

"Don't get ahead of yourself! There's still Meg!" Navi said, from her perch on his shoulder.

He climbed a flight of stone steps up onto a ledge leading to a straightened corridor. He'd straightened it out himself, earlier. What if he hadn't? Would the treasure chest still have been on the wall, and the hole through which he'd fallen been covered up? The Forest Temple was odd, even for dungeons.

"Well," he said, brow tightening as he considered the matter. He beamed at her. "Maybe Meg will be the boss of the dungeon!" he said.

Navi sighed, crossing her arms and shaking her head. "As if we would be that lucky…."

But, she gave him a feeble smile in return.

They backtracked through the dungeon after Link pulled out his dungeon map, which, combined with the compass, clearly showed that he'd found most everything of any importance marked on the map—except for the huge skull, shaped the same as the head of the big key, that marked the boss's lair. It was the only room on floor 2B.

When they came to the central chamber (emerging, somehow from the ledge high above the rest of the room, which he'd believed inaccessible, and then forgotten about) he noticed, first, that three of the four torches were lit. Then, he noticed the figure with the pale, shriveled skin, and the onion-shaped purple hat, with a long, violet dress, and bright orange hair (mostly hidden under the hat).

Had the poe sisters been kokiri? They looked about the right height, and they had almost the right appearance otherwise. Amy even wore green…perhaps, they were kokiri who had disobeyed the Great Deku Tree, left the Forest, and this was what had happened to them. If true, it must have happened a long time ago.

"That's Meg," Navi whispered in his ear. "Be careful. She knows how to make illusions, and will try to trick your eyes. It would be different if you could see through illusions…but you don't have that skill. It's a common sheikah technique, but Sheik isn't here either. Just pay close attention, and I'll see if I can't figure a way out to tell truth from lies. We'd better climb over the railing, and go confront her, before she creates a defensive barrier as Amy did."

Link nodded his understanding, and stepped onto the low ledge into which the bars of the railing were set, swinging his legs over it, and climbing over, and then making his way down the wall as quietly as he could.

This was not very quietly at all. Stealth was not his area of expertise. He dropped heavily to the ground, and the last of the poe sisters turned to face him, with a terrible, screeching cry. He ran to the roof of the lift to confront her, as she rose into the air. Her form seemed to shimmer, and then divide into two. The two again divided into two; four Megs floated before him. They took up positions in each cardinal direction, and began to circle him.

As they did that, Navi was watching, very carefully.

Link glanced back and forth between her, and the four circling ghosts.

"I think you'll have to attack one at random, and risk whatever trap awaits a bad choice. The odds are against you, but I have nothing to work with, yet. If you can show me at least how a false Meg behaves…."

Link lashed out at the most expedient Meg—the one currently on his left—and the four poes merged into one once more, which reared back, as if stricken, and then disappeared, swinging the violet torch at him.

She reappeared, already divided into four circling selves, and Navi frowned. "It's still difficult to tell…truth be told, I hadn't expected you to accidentally pick the correct one!"

She climbed under the collar of his shirt so as not to obstruct his shots with the bow. Meg was no longer lurking close enough to be stricken by the Master Sword.

Link sheathed the sword, and pulled out the bow, notching an arrow to the string as he did. He aimed at a random Meg, and fired an arrow at her. It passed right through her, and he heard the cackling of a poe as frigid claws impaled themselves into his back. He bent over, rolled, clutching at his shoulder, reaching for the injury, covered by his shield, now. She may have managed to cut straight through his shield, without damaging it. She was, after all, an otherworldly being.

He dragged himself back to his feet, trying his best to ignore the numbing chill that spread from the wound from the clawed area. It was a cold, burning sensation, that reminded him of warming up after swimming through the chilly lake in the middle of Ice Ring Isle.

He shivered despite himself, reaching behind him for another arrow, trying to set aside the pain, as he aimed an arrow straight ahead for the moment.

"I see, I see," Navi murmured to herself. "I'm pretty sure it's…the one directly ahead of you, now!"

He trusted Navi despite her hesitation. He was sure that she was right, even if she wasn't. He had great faith in her, and so he fired his second arrow without hesitating himself.

The poes combined into one again, reeling back. Meg disappeared, leaving behind a whirling violet torch, which bounced off the Hylian Shield, and then the torch split into four again, and when the Megs reappeared, they each floated in a different direction, each evenly spaced in their little circle.

He readied his bow once more, aiming straight ahead for the moment, waiting for Navi's guidance. In this way, the battle against Meg commenced, and in this way it continued, as he slowly filled her decayed body with holes. Unlike the other poes, she seemed to have a physical body. She had a face, and burning violet eyes, and even hair. He wondered why.

Meg was a more difficult foe than the other three poe sisters put together, but at last, after hitting her thirteen more times with thirteen more arrows, blue flames sprung up, consuming her, until nothing remained but a treasure chest that he knew without opening it was filled with arrows, and the flame of the purple torch, which dispersed from the fallen torch, to reform atop the final brazier, in the final corner of the low stone wall around the lift. He pulled out the milk he'd been drinking, that he'd won at Lonlon Ranch, and took a sip, sighing in relief as the pain of Meg's attack faded with his fatigue.

With the fourth torch lit, the lift once more rose out of the floor. In the ashes of the fallen torch, a familiar figure appeared—a tiny woman the size of Link's hand, with light, straw blonde hair flecked with brown, which he might have thought had been dirtied if he hadn't known that that was how it usually looked. Her dress, however, was not usually torn, with jagged edges at the bottom of the skirt. The collar of her sleeveless dress was intact, but part of the skirt was ripped to her thigh, hanging in strips. She turned to them, crying out Navi's name as she fell from the air where Meg had been.

Navi caught hold of both of her hands, but could do little to halt the descent. Link dove towards them, catching both in his cupped hands, kneeling in the dirt.

"Gatrice!" he said. "What happened?"

"Huh?" she asked, voice muzzy and hazy. "Na-avi—is that you? Saria—she was going down into the heart of the temple…then, Meg appeared. It was too quick…I was swallowed up by the force of her magic. I don't know where Saria is."

Link knelt down beside the guardian faerie, as Navi hovered a bit further away. She was looking at the risen lift.

"Gatrice, tell us what happened."

"Saria wanted…me to find Link Sylvanus. What happened to him?" the faerie asked instead. She sounded a bit more coherent now, her thoughts more focused.

"Hello, Gatrice," Link said, with a furrowed brow, and a small smile. "What are you doing so far from Saria?"

"What are you doing with this stranger, Navi? Have you no shame? A faerie bond lasts forever…." Gatrice glared openly at Link, and there was something feral and unbridled about her expression, like which he'd never seen on a human face.

"This is Link," Navi huffed, folding her arms, as if for a confrontation. "I think I know my own bonded kokiri, thank you!"

"You've been taken in, Navi," said Gatrice. "Kokiris don't grow up! Sure, he resembles Link, but—"

"It's me, Gatrice. I have my memories back, and everything. Please, please, tell me what you know of where Saria might be."

He pulled out the faerie ocarina, and began to play Saria's Song. The melody filled the Temple, rebounding as it hit the walls, with an eerie echo. Something stirred. There was an odd familiarity to this experience.

Who dares? asked the voice of the forest, and he sighed. He should have expected the need to explain himself, and to try to maintain three or four conversations at once.

"Do you believe me, Gatrice? You know that only Saria's friends can learn that song."

"It's true…the notes are repelled by the minds of those Saria finds unworthy, and refuse to come clear, refuse to be replicated. And the only person she'd taught that song who looks anything like a kokiri is…."

Link bowed his head, scuffed his shoes, turned away, cringing at the booming voiceless voice growling savagely at his mind.

"It's me! It's Link Sylvanus! Don't you recognise me! I came here to free you from the evil within this Temple!" he cried, when he could bear it no longer.

Link Sylvanus was a kokiri. They do not grow up.

He sighed, hoping that Navi could satisfactorily explain their current, strange circumstances. "I don't understand it either," he said, turning to glance at Navi, trying to gauge how she was doing. Gatrice seemed stubbornly set against her. "It doesn't make sense to me, but I played Saria's Song. Do you know any outsiders who know that song?"

"Link?" asked Navi, as Gatrice watched him with a shrewd, considering glint to her eyes. Her arms were crossed, clutching her shoulders, as she leant to the side, her head bowed. She looked at him askance, up and over. It reminded him of Tetra, in the bomb shop.

"I had to explain to the Lost Woods. I don't think it believes me—that I am who I said I am."

"You are the foretold child of the forest—the Hero of Time," the forest said. "Is that what you would have us believe? Has the world sunken to such depths? Have the prophecies come true?"

Link did not ask what it meant: what depths, what prophecies? "It has," he said, turning to send a reassuring smile to his two companions.

"Then, Saria has gone to her fate. We shall obey you, and guide you, instead. In return, free us from the evil that pervades this sacred space."

Verdant green began to well up on the floor. It reminded him of something…green, and misty…it was something he'd seen in a dream….

Navi and Gatrice had continued speaking while he had been distracted.

"Then, we shall continue on, and defeat the boss of this dungeon, freeing Saria from his grasp, so that she can fulfil her destiny. Fear not, Gatrice; we will look after her for you."

"I shall show you how far we came before she was kidnapped," Gatrice said, her voice clipped, her words terse and direct. She took to the air, flying low as if injured (the state of her dress suggested the same thing, but there were no injuries to be seen). Link opened the treasure chest, withdrawing the arrows lying inside, and stepped onto the lift.

"Down?" he asked, thinking of the map. The lift did not seem to recognise his uncertainty. It sank down into the floor on its own, deeper and deeper, before depositing him in an odd room, with three handle-like protrusions of stone sticking out from the walls, three square holes cut into those walls serving as doorways, and a red and a blue carpet. The red carpet ran into the wall, and disappeared. The blue one continued into one of the small rooms beyond the square cutout. He could see a switch there.

"There is a hidden room on the other side of a lowered grate. I think it's behind the red carpet."

Gatrice flew into his face, pointing at the red carpet when she named it, giving the alarming impression that she thought that he didn't know what the colour red was.

He stepped through the square room, and onto a switch, to hear a sound similar to that of bars retracting—a heavy, scraping noise, perhaps a bit like metal grinding against stone.

He peered at the handhold protrusions of stone, and leant his weight against it, almost on a whim. The room was very circular, arranged into rays. Some were stone-coloured. Some were blue. Some were red. And, if the blue ray continued into a small room now, and there was no sign of the boss's chamber, perhaps the wall itself could be moved. He had no idea how that could possibly work—this wall rose all the way up the lift's path to the central chamber of the Forest Temple. Turning the wall would be shifting a ring of solid rock, firmly attached to storeys of rock above it—the materials of the building of the Forest Temple, which was, in many places, made of this one mass of stone.

The wall rotated, of course. Now, the two doors were on two of the beige wedges. There was nothing to be seen beyond them. He pushed the wall again, to reveal two room behind the red strips. One such chamber was grated off. The other held a step-on switch. He stepped onto the switch, and the grate on the other side of the room lifted.

Beyond the grate was a long corridor, with a red stripe—the red carpet—running down its length. At the end of the hallway, he found a huge door, a red cross across a blue door. Steel chains blocked access, but there was a huge padlock, and he had a big key. He inserted the big key into the lock, and twisted. The chains and the padlock fell off with the big key, revealing the boss door, which had no handle. He turned back to Gatrice.

"Gatrice, will you be safe back here? We need to face the boss now. You could get hurt."

"I don't care about that," Gatrice said, growling. "Saria and I were separated. A kokiri will die without his or her bonded faerie!"

Link sighed. "I suppose you'd best come with us," he conceded, as Navi frowned at him. Surely she, of all people, understood how Gatrice felt. But, Navi seemed set upon preventing Gatrice from accompanying them.

Link shook his head, turning to the door. "Open," he said firmly, and the door rose into the ceiling. Navi perched on his shoulder as they walked through.

Gatrice flew around the room, made a circle of it, and flew back.

"Look! It's just a circular roped-off area, with a circular wall around it, with six pictures of the same scene on the walls. Boring. Where's Saria?"

Navi and Link looked at each other at the same time, as Gatrice snorted.

"Identical pictures, you said?" Link repeated. Gatrice leant sideways where she floated in the air, nodding curtly.

"Another poe?" asked Link, of Navi.

"It would have been a poe sister, but we defeated all of them already. I don't know who else…it would be some sort of spirit. But, what spirit would resort to it? I can't think of that many different kinds of evil spirits."

Link, in return, stepped up the ramp leading into the doubly—make that triply—ringed circle. Gatrice was right. There was nothing here but a short bounding wall cordoning the circle in which he stood, the walls of the room further out, and a ring of pictures situated on the wall. They weren't even pictures of someone or something. They seemed to be landscapes of the road of Hyrule Field, somewhere near Lonlon Ranch (he'd forgot about that place; he should go there and see what had changed in the seven year gap!). The symbol of the Triforce was painted in red and yellow on the floor, similar to the seals that the Wind Waker had had to stand on to reveal the treasure chest containing a map to a shard of the Triforce.

Gatrice, hanging over the shorter wall, leaning her head lazily on the flat top, cocked her head, moving her hand to cradle it. She raised a single blonde eyebrow at him.

"Now what, Navi?" he asked. Navi said nothing, fluttering over to look at each painting in turn.

"I suppose, we shoot each of the paintings."

Link shrugged, pulled out the bow, drew an arrow, shot the first painting. When it didn't burst into blue flames, he thought of Amy's traps. It hadn't ricocheted back at him, but it hadn't done anything else, either. It stuck into the painting, and then slowly disintegrated. Were they supposed to do that? They were faerie arrows, after all.

He shrugged, turned, and walked back to the entry to the ring. He heard a snort of a horse behind him. Navi gasped.

He whirled round, despite the impossibility of a horse appearing down here without their being aware of it.

His mind froze, but he reached automatically for sword and shield. He knew that horse. He knew that rider. The man astride the horse must be too young. He looked the same age as he had that fateful night, seven years ago. Surely, time had not ignored the King of Thieves.

The black stallion pawed the ground, his fiery red mane seeming to burn against the coals of his eyes. Ganondorf held onto the reins, peering over at Link.

"G-Ganondorf?" he gasped. It was astonishing that he'd managed to speak.

As if in response, the spirit reached up, grabbing onto its chin, and ripping…something off its head, as if taking off a mask. Beneath was a skeletal face, dark and expressionless. Link thought that he might have seen that face before…somewhere.

Without another word, the horse and ghastly rider floated into the air, and leapt into one of the paintings. Oh.

Link glanced over at Navi. "Navi," he said flatly. "What—what is that?"

It was not every day you saw a man pull off his face as if he were removing a mask.

"I don't believe it!" Navi breathed. "It's Phantom Ganondo—Phantom Ganon (that's shorter!)! His defence must be to hide in these pictures…and I suspect that they're the ultimate shield, except that they wouldn't allow him to attack. It's a powerful magic user; remember that ball of light the real Ganondorf threw at you seven years ago? He can use those balls of light, too. He's too far away to hit with the sword; try shooting him with the bow when he appears!"

Link nodded, and together, they waited for Phantom Ganon to reappear, Link standing with bow drawn and aiming around him. They glanced all around the room frantically.

There came the sound of charging magic, and Link knew that they had run out of time. He saw a horse jumping out of a picture frame out of the corner of his right eye, and he spun, firing an arrow at the horse as it leapt out of the frame. Despite the lack of time to prepare, he'd spent so much time with Saria, and in the Forest Temple, practising, that he managed to hit the horse. The painting-vortex that the boss had used to enter the paintings sucked it back in.

He heard the sound of hoofbeats retreating away, and he kept on the lookout, constantly watching for when the boss would return. He kept his bow following his line of sight, sighting at each picture in turn. He heard the sound of charging magic behind him, and whirled around, shooting the boss again as it emerged from the painting. The painting sucked him back in, and Link returned to aiming the arrow at each portrait in turn, as he spun around.

This time, he managed to see that the horse and rider, now at the edge of the path, glowed with violet light, and then began to rise out of the picture world. Link took careful aim, and Navi flew over to the portrait. She'd been watching him, and this time, she had the chance to be more useful. She fluttered next the portrait as the horse leapt out. Link aimed at the horse, this time, and fired his arrow.

The horse was sucked back into the painting, but Phantom Ganon was thrown clear by the power of the shot. He recovered quickly, straightening up and floating in the air, clutching a long staff. Now what?

Yellow magical energy gathered at the end of the staff as a ball of light. Navi called out to Link, as she floated beside the boss, who seemed not to notice her.

"You got rid of the horse, but Ganondorf's still unharmed. He attacks using powerful magic. There has to be a way to use that against him…. The only thing that might work is the Master Sword! It repels and purifies evil, right? If you could purify his attack…hmm. I think you could do it! Wait for him to throw that ball of energy at you, and answer his attack with an attack of your own!

The ball of light left the tip of the staff, but Link was frozen in place.

Those words. He'd forgotten about it before. Now he remembered—it was in the Forsaken Fortress. He'd found his way barred on all sides. There'd been nothing to do, he'd thought he'd no choice but to turn back and ask for advice.

Phantom Ganon had appeared above him, and he'd wondered what it was…and he'd heard a voice. "It's Phantom Ganon!" the voice had exclaimed, in a voice now painfully familiar. "Answer his attack with an attack of your own!" It was how he'd known how to defeat Phantom Ganon.

If that had been he. And, how could it not have been? There was no one else to hear Navi's explanation here but he. The faerie bond allowed silent communication—selective telepathy.

His thoughts were arrested by the sudden feeling that his entire body was on fire, as it crackled with the electric energy of Phantom Ganon's magic. It burnt and bubbled like lava again beneath his skin, white-hot. His knees gave out, unable to support him anymore, and he struggled even to put weight onto his hands. He was sure he could hear his bones melting. His hands were shaking too badly to hold the sword, as Navi had suggested.

"Link! Link, answer me!" cried Navi's voice, close to, but colour and sight had not yet returned to the world. He couldn't turn to look at her.

"What happened? Are you alright?" He noticed how her high-pitched voice rose several octaves in worry. He could hear the flapping of those tiny wings, near his ear.

"Link! Answer me! Get up! He's readying another attack! Come on!"

He rolled to avoid the second attack, somehow missing the area it hit, although he could feel the heat under the leggings he wore. The kokiri boots protected against the worst of the blast.

Slowly, he managed to pull himself to his feet.

"I'll tell you later, Navi," he said, blushing furiously at his simple mistake. He should never have let those memories overwhelm him. He forced down shame, drawing the Master Sword with still shaking hands. He steadied his left hand with the right, and backed away from Phantom Ganon, determined not to think about what he had just remembered—at least, not yet.

This time, when the boss sent a ball of white light his way, he turned the Master Sword to hit it back with the flat of the blade, Navi guiding it on its way. Phantom Ganon responded in time to return the corrupted ball of light back to him, and he hit it again. They sent the light back and forth several more times before Phantom Ganon failed to respond in time. It hit him, and he sank to the floor of the arena.

Link, by now well enough to walk and run, and to hold the Master Sword with only one hand, raced over, cutting through as great of an area as he could.

Eventually, despite Link's best efforts, Phantom Ganon recovered enough to take to the sky again.

Link braced himself, putting a fair amount of distance between them, his gaze fixed on the enemy, but his mind watching Navi, too.

The boss gathered another ball of yellow light, and sent it flying to Link, who once again responded by purifying the light and sending it back, knowing for certain that this worked. They exchanged the ball of light at least seven times before Phantom Ganon at last was stricken by the ball of light, sinking to the ground with a groan.

Link moved in, cleaving through the figure with the jump attack, jumping and dragging the Master Sword through it several times in various directions. It was definitely weaker when it took to the sky again.

He waited for the ball of energy to form. This time, it was able to send the light back and forth five times before it stumbled, was hit, and sank to the ground with a shriek and a groan. The shriek was an eerie, high-pitched thing, which reminded Link slightly of the redead. He ran over, swiping repeatedly through the figure leaning on its staff before him.

It leant back, flailing its arms, already disintegrating, when a pool of violet muck formed itself into a cushion around the figure, which floated, twitching, in the air.

"Well, well, well! Well done, kid! I see you defeated my ghost!" cried a horridly familiar voice. "But, when you face the real me, it won't be so easy! You got lucky, Sylvanus!"

A vortex appeared, leading who-knew-where. It began to suck the still floating, twitching boss in. "What a worthless boss my phantom made! I will banish it to the gap between dimensions. Maybe it will become more competent after it spends some time there."

Link was barely listening, thinking as he was about all that had occurred at the Forsaken Fortress.

Ganondorf's terrible laugh rang in the air, and Link shivered. Then, the feeling of being watched faded, and he relaxed, unthinking.

A blue triangular pillar of light rose from the empty space of the triforce decorating the centre of the arena. He turned to Navi, as Gatrice fluttered over to them and the light.

"Navi, I have more to tell you. I didn't mean to leave it out. I honestly forgot about it, somehow. When he—or I?—was at the Forsaken Fortress, Phantom Ganon appeared. As he attacked us, I heard your voice, speaking the very words you spoke just there. Well, I heard a memory of your voice, saying 'It's Phantom Ganon! Answer his attack with an attack of your own!' It was how he knew how to defeat Phantom Ganon. But, if he remembers you…."

"It simply lends credence to our theory of reincarnation," Navi said, with a dismissive shrug. "It's not that important, or troubling. But…I suppose I understand why you froze the way you did. Are there any other such moments?"

Link frowned, considering.

"I…don't remember what happened in the Forbidden Woods. Or under the sea, when Tetra's true identity was revealed."

"What are you talking about?" Gatrice demanded, flying over to them, her voice harsh with impatience.

"Reincarnation and true dreams," Navi said succinctly, cutting past the other faerie. "But now, I think we'd best leave. Saria is waiting for us."

Navi settled on Link's left shoulder, and Gatrice, frowning and scowling at Navi, landed on his right. He stepped into the blue light, which lifted him up, and up….

He found himself standing in the empty space of the triforce, in the middle of the shimmering pool, in the Chamber of Sages. He forcibly kept himself from thinking of the Great Sea.

The blue light gently set him down, and a ring of green appeared from the pinwheel engraving before him. A girl appeared in the ring of green light, as it faded away—a girl with shoulder-length green hair, and bright, sapphire blue eyes. She looked small and vulnerable now, in the green turtleneck and boots. He stared, swallowing hard.

"Thank you," she said, looking right at him. "Thank you, Hero of Time," she said, more loudly now, and he closed his eyes, bowing his head, because of all the kokiris, this was the one he most wanted to recognise him. Mido was free to think what he would, and Fado, and even Wihei, Tago, and his other friends. But, not Saria. She needed to know the truth.

"Thanks to you, I was able to awaken as a Sage. I understand my destiny, now. Something always separated me from my friends. It's because I was meant to someday become the Sage of the Forest. Even the Lost Woods itself knew that, although I did not.

"I've been waiting for you. I knew you would come to set me free, if I waited. Because I know you, Link…."

He raised his head, too, now. The distance between them was great enough that it created the illusion that they could pretend to be the same age, the same height.

She knew. She recognised him. All the other kokiris had thought him a familiar stranger, but Saria knew him. Was it only that he'd played her song in the Forest Temple?

"Saria…. I'm so sorry. I remember everything now. I've been so rude, and…and mean. I know you're disappointed in me. And, I left for seven years, but I didn't know, I swear—"

His voice broke, but Saria lifted her hand, waving off further explanation, halting him mid-speech.

"It's alright, Link. You don't have to explain. I know of your destiny, now, and of mine. I see the roles fate has cast to us. There is distance between us, perhaps, that wasn't there before, but it isn't your fault. Because, it is destiny that you and I can't live in the same world. I see that, now. But, that doesn't mean we can't still be friends. You and I are the outsiders among the kokiri."

"You've raised me, from when I was just a baby, protected me, taught me right from wrong. I don't know what it is, having a mother, not really. But, I think you and Navi are good enough."

Navi swooped low past his face, halo and face tinged pink, as if she were a healing faerie.

"Aw, Link!" she said, for once sounding embarrassed herself. She'd sure done her best to embarrass him, hadn't she?

"Saria, you've done more for me than I could possibly repay…. I don't know what to do. How can I help you? What can I do for you? I can't just leave you here…."

Saria bowed her head, then straightened up. "Link, that is exactly what you must do. Ganondorf must be stopped! If I add my power to the Master Sword, it will grow stronger. I'll be helping you on your quest. Other people are suffering, too! But….

"Maybe, someday, we'll be reborn into another world. Then, you can be my Big Brother, as I was your Big Sister. It's the most I could ask for, Link…. But, for now, please take this medallion, and know that I will be with you, supporting you, and giving you my power! Tell Mido I said to go back to living his life! He doesn't have to guard the woods anymore!"

Before he could think too hard about the Waker of Winds, and his younger sister Aryll, Saria lifted her hands over her head, and a ball of green light formed there. It slowly solidified into a medallion similar to Rauru's, but with a pinwheel design embossed on it. He sighed, bowed his head, and then lifted his arms to mimic hers, so that the medallion traveled from one to the other.

Before he could say more, the world faded into whiteness, and then he was high above what he recognised to be the remains of the Great Deku Tree, the father of the forest. If there was a Great Deku Tree on the Great Sea, whence had it come, with this one long dead?

The blue light set him down near the still yawning mouth. There was a tiny shoot with twin leaves sticking out of the ground, in the middle of a bare patch. It was so conspicuous that he leant over to more closely examine it—just as a broad tree trunk burst out of the ground beneath it, and the twin leaves erupted into a miniature leafy canopy…that came only about to his waist.

It sent him flying back, but he quickly regained his feet, warily approaching the sudden tree taking up the area of the bare patch.

"Hello," the Tree said, with true childish exuberance, seeming not to notice that it had sent him flying. "I'm the Deku Tree Sprout! Since you and Saria purified the Forest Temple, I can grow and flourish! Thanks a lot!"

"Oh, and I suppose I just lazed about doing nothing, eh?" Navi said, glowering at the miniature tree.

"Someday, I'll grow up to become a forest king, same as my predecessor. Those evil monsters were keeping me from growing. Now that I'm here, the monsters should be gone from the forest. The presence of a Deku Tree in this sacred space provides a bulwark against monsters. And, as a Deku Tree, I have my predecessor's memories!"

The Tree was still broadly grinning, but Link was lost in thought. He remembered the guardian tree of the Forest Haven, who had created the koroks. Could that really be the little tree sprout before him now? The facial features were still hidden under the botanical equivalent of baby fat. It was difficult to tell what the tree would grow to look like.

"Link Sylvanus, protector of Kokiri Forest…you must have noticed the strange behaviour of your childhood friends since your return to the woods. No one recognised you except for Saria, did they? Even the people close to you thought of you only as an oddly familiar stranger. Do you know why?"

Link frowned, closed his eyes, drawing into himself. It hurt more to think about now that he had years worth of memories of time spent discussing various topics (ranging from philosophy and politics, to literature, to the peculiar behaviour of Mido and Saria's) with the Know-It-All Brothers, complaining whilst working with Tago, or how Wihei had taught him how to swim. None of them knew him.

His heart clenched at the thought, and he winced, as if the pain were from some physical blow. Navi landed on his shoulder, a comforting weight, forcibly reminding him of the moment, of her continued presence. He gave her a weak smile, as she crawled over to lean against his neck.

"It's because you grew up! Kokiris never grow up…even after seven years, they're still kids! And, why did you grow up when they didn't, you might ask? Well, as you might have figured out already, it's because you're not really a kokiri! You are a hylian!

"You see, a long time ago, before the old king of Hyrule unified the kingdom, a great war swept across this land. The races that are now allies of the king fought against him, or for him, in a truly horrendous battle. Towns on the borders between the lands of the various races were often under attack.

"Fleeing the fires of war, a hylian woman, wounded unto death, bypassed the protections set around this sacred forest. Near death as she was, the forest did not bother keeping her out. And, she brought with her her infant son.

"She did not live much longer than the time it took to beg the Great Deku Tree to look after her son. Ordinarily, no stranger was allowed to remain in the forest, but the Great Deku Tree sensed that the boy was a child marked by fate, and took him in, raising him as a kokiri. And now, the time of destiny has finally come! That little boy was you!"

The tree sounded far too morbidly happy with the story. Link hoped it was only because he was too young to understand how upsetting such a story was to hear. This must have been his mother. He'd just lost a mother to fate, and now he'd learnt that the woman who had birthed him had also died, long since, and he would never find her again, in this world, in this life, and perhaps not in any other, either. At least, he could still talk to Saria, via her song, and Navi was still here by his side, but it stung, with the recent pang of a fresh loss, to be given a mother only to straightaway have her taken from him.

He bowed his head, slumped, eyes still closed. He couldn't help imagining the scene, wondering how she had looked, what manner of woman she had been, this mysterious stranger who had saved him, if only just, from her own fate. She must have loved him a lot, and it made it seem ungrateful, how earnestly he loved and appreciated Saria and Navi, neither of whom were connected to him by blood.

And, as for the rest…how many times would someone force him to completely re-evaluate what he thought of himself, his own identity, in such a short span of time? In less than a week, or so it seemed, he'd gone from being the kokiri odd child, a ten-year-old who thought he was seventeen, to an actual seventeen year old, been burdened with the mantle of the legendary Hero of Time, recovered his childhood memories, met Sheik, lost Saria, and now learnt that he'd not even been a real kokiri in this life. There was nothing solid upon which to build his foundations of identity. The moment he decided one thing, a contradicting fact appeared to sabotage him. He could only continue as best he could. Perhaps, it mattered less what names might be attached to him, than what he believed, and what he meant to do.

Still….

"I'm so happy to finally reveal all of this to you," the Deku Tree Sprout continued without a pause, and Link slumped. What could be said in response to that?